


Robbie's anxiety

by AniZH



Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 20:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18301835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AniZH/pseuds/AniZH
Summary: Jade hears a sound that’s eerily familiar – and finds Robbie in the middle of a panic attack.





	Robbie's anxiety

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this one shot that’s quite heavy!  
> I explicitly warn at this point: Do not keep reading if you can get triggered by reading about anxiety or panic attacks.  
> I’m hoping I’m doing this topic justice.

Jade’s mother dropped her off at school before driving off to work.  
It’s the 30th of November, Jade has turned fifteen a week earlier and has started her Freshman Year at Hollywood Arts last summer.  
She walks over the parking lot when she hears a sound that’s eerily familiar. It takes her breath for a second.  
A group of girls pass her by, talking loudly. They definitely don’t hear that sound. But every person is pretty much programmed to hear a certain sound. A parent will always hear their child’s cry in a crowd. So many people turn when loose change falls onto the asphalt in a busy street.  
Jade can hear the sound perfectly, even with the girls passing by.  
She stops, waits for them to pass, before she walks into the direction from which she hears the sound. That panicky breathing.  
Behind the last car sits a boy on the ground that Jade immediately recognizes as that Robbie kid that always runs around with his stupid puppet. The same puppet is sitting next to him now and Robbie isn’t touching him or even looking at him.  
Jade doesn’t know what’s the deal with this boy. She has seen Beck, whom she started dating a while ago, hang out with him but never asked him about him.  
Robbie is now sitting with his knees up his chest, shaking, his eyes somewhere in the distance, tears running down his face and... that breathing. That damn breathing, that’s way too quick and shallow.  
She gets flashbacks to her mother, sitting on the couch of their home, looking so much like Robbie does right now.  
She doesn’t think. Her body starts operating on its own, getting down in front of Robbie, saying his name.  
He doesn’t react at all.  
“Robbie, look at me,” she clearly says.  
His eyes flicker to hers before they flicker back into the distance.  
She grabs him firmly by his shoulder and is glad that he isn’t giving a start. She remembers that there were times her mother couldn’t stand a touch when she had an attack like this.  
“Look at me!” she demands.  
That does make him look at her, his eyes staying with hers.  
“Breathe,” she says, still demanding because it works. “Slowly. In and out. In. And out.”  
She breathes with him for two minutes and it does make his breathing calm down a bit.  
She assures him: “I’m with you.”  
He isn’t alone. He isn’t far away from the world in some endlessly deep pit.  
“Rex,” Robbie says weakly, the first word he has probably ever spoken to Jade. She knows he normally doesn’t dare talking to her, not even a greeting in small classes. She likes making others feel that way. But right now, she has to make Robbie feel safe instead. And if he needs his dumb puppet for that...  
“Rex is here too,” she says and points next to him: “See? There he is.”  
Robbie does look and he exhales in relief but he’s still shaking and... he’s still not back in reality, Jade knows.  
“Look at me,” she demands once more and he does.  
“Good. Keep your eyes with me,” she says. The human connection helped her mother a whole lot. She hopes it’ll help Robbie too.  
Distraction helped her too, at least when she was over that certain point, when her breathing already slowed down.  
That’s why she breathes with him for another moment, before:  
“Did you do your Spanish homework?” Jade asks, without breaking eye contact with Robbie or letting go of his shoulder.  
They have Spanish together and it’s their first class today.  
Robbie seems confused at that question, especially in a situation like this. Which is good. Confusion is a big distraction too.  
“Yeah,” he answers unsure.  
“The second exercise was a bitch, huh?” Jade says.  
That even makes Robbie smile. “I googled it.”  
She feels his body becoming calm under her hand on his shoulder.  
She breathes another time, very slowly, in and out, a bit louder, so he imitates her.  
Then she says honestly: “Me, too.”  
The bell rings in the same moment. She finally lets go of his shoulder but still isn’t breaking eye contact. “And that’s us. Coming?”  
She backs away a bit to give Robbie room. He takes another deep breath before he nods: “Yeah.”  
Jade stands up and Robbie does too, picking up Rex and his school bag.  
They walk to class without exchanging another word.

They don’t talk about it.  
Beck and Jade get together and Robbie gets scared of Jade so easily. Though he does remember their first talk to clearly. He wants to tell her how thankful he is but he can never find the words. He’s also thankful that she apparently tells nobody about it. It’s their secret.  
He tries to never let anyone witness these attacks. It’s difficult. It was almost impossible when he was younger. But they get rare, almost always only happen on a certain day and the week afterwards. Rex can talk him through it sometimes. He mostly has still enough sense to find an empty space when he feels those attacks coming – even if he’s still not able to keep them from happening every time.  
Jade watches Robbie a bit after that first incident and she thinks she sees him looking distraught two days later but she doesn’t find him again like that and... he must have it under control. She doesn’t worry about it.

o

It’s exactly a year later that Jade walks out of school after her last class and walks over the parking lot to get to the bus she’ll take home today. Most days, Beck and she do something together in the afternoons, but he got out of school earlier and already went home. Cat and Andre are meanwhile staying in school longer and Jade has no idea where Robbie went to. Not that she’s in the mood to spend time alone with him. She never does.  
But there, she hears the breathing again. For a moment she believes it’s only in her head, but it’s there.  
She goes after it and it’s once again Robbie she finds in a corner of the parking lot, behind a teacher’s car.  
All around she can hear classmates talking and laughing, cars starting. But the poignant sound is Robbie’s breathing, quick and shallow once more.  
She knows how to talk to him this time around. There is no careful approach, but she directly tells him roughly to look at her, grabs his shoulder and calms him down a bit quicker than the previous year.  
She ends up joking with him about that stupid Trina girl that ‘performed’ yesterday in the main hallway. It was like a car accident – you weren’t able to look away.  
Finally, Robbie sighs, standing up: “I can’t go home like this.”  
Jade stands up as well and... she sees that he’s still somewhat shaking. She silently agrees with him, though she doesn’t know if that’s the reason why he believes he can’t go home.  
“You’re taking the bus home, aren’t you?”  
He mostly does. He also nods now.  
It’s a different bus than hers but she promptly decides: “I’m gonna ride home with you.”  
Robbie looks unsure. “Jade, you don’t need to...”  
“Don’t talk back to me,” she roughly says and he doesn’t.  
They take the bus together to his house. She has never been there before but he lives in a nice enough neighborhood in a small house.  
She feels like he wants to say goodbye to her outside, but she decides to take him all the way inside. Just to make sure at least one of his parents or anyone is home to watch over him. They joked a whole lot more on the way but he still doesn’t seem to be fully himself. Instead, he seemed to have almost gotten another attack on the walk here, when she didn’t distract him for a minute or so.  
“Robbie, are you back?” a voice immediately calls out when Robbie opens the door. He and Jade walk inside, into a living room and out of another door walks a woman that must be his mother. She is followed by his father who Jade has seen pick Robbie up before. And by a girl that must be about ten years old. And an older couple that might be some of Robbie’s grandparents.  
It seems like they have all waited for him. They are confused to see Jade.  
“Oh, who are you?” his mother asks.  
“Jade,” she only answers. She and Robbie stopped right behind the door, after closing it behind them.  
Robbie quickly explained: “She’s doing a school project with me.”  
Which isn’t true. Doesn’t his family know about his panic attacks?  
Well, she won’t tell them. She thinks he should, but she won’t do it. That’s why she doesn’t say anything.  
“You know what day it is, right?” his father asks him, strictly.  
“I...” Robbie says and it doesn’t seem possible as he’s always so pale and the panic attack didn’t help, but he’s loosing even more color out of his face.  
“You are not planning to do a school project today, are you?” his mother prompts.  
Jade doesn’t know what’s going on, what day today is. She doesn’t understand why his parents seem... genuinely shocked at the thought of Robbie wanting to work on a school project today.  
“I’m sorry, I...” Robbie stammers and Rex, instead of going against Robbie like he otherwise always seems to do, swiftly intervenes: “Don’t get your panties in a pretzel.”  
If looks could kill and puppets could die, Rex would. Robbie’s mother looks at him with so much hate, disdain and disgust... well, Jade definitely can up her glare-game.  
Robbie opens his mouth and closes it a few times but Jade is the one to speak next after watching him for a moment: “It’s fine, everybody. I told Robbie we should do it right away and didn’t give him a chance to object. I see myself out.”  
With that she leaves, not waiting for anybody’s answer, hoping that his family will know that she actually could make Robbie do everything, so he has an excuse for bringing her home.

Jade still thinks it’s not her business. But she watches Robbie closer again and two days later at lunch, Robbie isn’t there. She has a hunch, tells the others she has to use the restroom, blocks Cat from joining her, and walks to his previous class that he even shares with Jade, Cat and Andre. But just because they might all be sort of friends, it’s not like they constantly wait up for each other.  
Sure enough, Jade finds Robbie in the otherwise empty classroom. He’s still sitting at his desk though it does look as if he was about to walk out of the room. His schoolbag lies halfway on the way to the door.  
Rex is sitting on front of him on the desk and it seems like Robbie tries to focus on him but he’s long gone, his breathing way too quick, his whole body shaking.  
“Robbie, stop!” she says, after she barely closed the door of the classroom behind her.  
He immediately looks at her at that command and before he can look away again, she tells him, walking all the way up to him: “Keep your eyes with me!”  
Then, she starts to breathe, loud and slow, a clear demand for him to follow her lead which he does.  
She tells him that she’s right there and when he calmed down far enough, she tries to distract him once more, with talking about the class they just had together.  
She waits until Robbie is even able to give a shaky laugh, before she decides: “Stay here. I’m gonna get us cocoa.”  
She doesn’t know if cocoa helps Robbie at all. But at some point, her mother started to make it after her attacks, getting both herself and Jade some. Jade remembers her mother telling her how cold she felt during those panic attacks, despite the sweat appearing all over her face. And how cocoa helped her warm her insides again and loosened the cold grip around her heart.  
Opposite to this classroom is a vending machine that sells coffee and cocoa. The coffee isn’t good but the cocoa is good enough. Jade gets two cups before she walks back into the classroom. She’s relieved to see that Robbie hasn’t gone right back to his attack. He does seem like he’s back in reality. Though still shaky and pale.  
“Thank you,” Robbie says, accepting one of the cups, enclosing it with both his hands.  
Jade sits down on the table next to Robbie’s, taking a sip of her own cocoa. Robbie looks down onto his hands around his cup and murmurs: “And sorry for before.”  
“No,” Jade responds. What does he have to be sorry for? Seriously, why do people do this? Apologize though they didn’t do anything wrong?  
She looks at Robbie for another moment, how he looks so unsure, and she decides to tell him about her mother though she never told anyone about it, because it’s not her thing to tell, though she also deems it stupid that it’s such a taboo: “You know... My mom had attacks like these when I was nine. She was very pregnant with my little brother when they started.” They started after she found her boyfriend cheating on her with another woman in their bed. While she was very pregnant with their child.  
Jade found them directly after, found her mother screaming and crying and throwing that idiot out. She kept crying that day and then, she stopped.  
Jade found her roughly a week later in a panic attack, which was so damn scary. She worried about both her mother and her little brother in her belly. Luckily, her little brother was okay and wasn’t harmed through it.  
“It went on for a few months, before she finally admitted that she needed help,” Jade continues.  
She sent Jade out when it first started. Jade found her about once a week and barricaded herself in her room or stayed with her brother, after he was born, all afraid. Then, she pulled herself together and tried to stay with her mother, but she wasn’t able to help. Until she went into her school library and set out to find out what happened with her mother and how to help her.  
She finally found something about anxiety and panic attacks and the next time she saw her mother have one, she talked her through it.  
It was that attack that made her mother realize she couldn’t go on like this. She asked Jade how she suddenly knew how to help her and Jade explained that she read up on it and her mother knew that she majorily screwed up. It wasn’t on her daughter to read up on how to help her, to feel so powerless that she would even use her breaks in school to read more about what was going on with her mother.  
She says: “She saw someone about it and learned how to avoid them .She has been good for years now, I think.”  
She wasn’t immediately good. Jade still was with her for quite a few attacks. But it became easier. And her mother talked a whole lot to her about it, also trying to calm her fears and worries.  
Robbie glances to her, then back to his hands, before he confesses: “I am seeing someone. Not as often as I used to but still. It’s where I met Rex.”  
That makes a whole lot of sense. Jade has heard that child psychologists work with absolutely everything to try to get through to children, also with puppets. Did one of them try to get Robbie to talk through Rex and did he just stick with it?  
Jade won’t pry. She won’t ask why he ever needed to see anyone, if the panic attacks started randomly and he had to see someone because of that or what else.   
She doesn’t need to ask. Robbie quietly confesses: “My older brother died when I was five.”  
Jade didn’t know Robbie had a brother. She knows about his little sister. But she didn’t know he ever had a brother. She’s sure none of their friends know.  
She feels the pain right away. She has a brother herself. The thought of loosing him...  
She knows it must’ve happened on the 30th of November. That’s why his parents were so weird about Robbie bringing Jade home two days ago, on that date. The date must be triggering him into the attacks. Though it’s obviously not just on that date, as it also happened today.  
Jade has a lump in her throat. She doesn’t know what to say. So she says the only thing she can think of, flatly: “No child should ever experience something like that.”  
“They shouldn’t,” Robbie agrees, again glancing to her. “I barely remember him anymore but it still hurts. He was hit by a car and sometimes... it just gets into my head and I start to panic and I...” He shudders at the mere thought.  
Jade knows that panic attacks are as complex as the people that have them. That’s one of the many things she read about them, back when her mother had them.  
But she can imagine why she found Robbie in the parking lot both last year and this year, in the middle of an attack. Cars don’t scare him generally, as far as Jade can judge. But on the date of his brother’s death, it’s easy for him to ride his thoughts into that attack, standing in a full parking lot. Maybe his thoughts then start with his brother’s death and quickly work themselves through all the failures of his own life and possible future failures.  
Jade asked her mother about her attacks, about what started them. Her mother said she didn’t know at first. It happened that they started randomly, her just walking through a room, thinking about nothing, really, and then her breath starting to quicken. She only learned through the help she got to pinpoint the different triggers that were all around her. The different thoughts that led her into an attack. For her, it often started with the thought or the noises of Jade’s little brother. Then, she spiralled into why his father did what he did, how she now was all alone with two children, that she had to work full time and raise those two children.  
Her mother tried to explain that to Jade after she asked but Jade noticed how difficult it was for her mother, how she even needed to concentrate on her breathing through that and how she only did it because she felt like she at least owned Jade that explanation.  
Well... “You don’t have to explain,” she tells Robbie because he doesn’t.  
They both drink from their cups, before Robbie whispers: “I don’t like being this weak.”  
He sounds so defeated. Jade knows that kind of voice from her mother too.  
Jade looks at him for a moment, before she says: “I disagree with my mom a lot and I despise her taste in men. But she’s the strongest woman I know and always has been.” Also when she had those attacks. They don’t make you weak.  
And no, not every person needs to be strong or something. She, Jade, might like strong people, but heck, everybody should be the way they are.  
But yes, anxiety doesn’t make you weak. Why should it?  
Robbie looks at her, a smile on his face. “Thank you, Jade. I mean it.” Not for saying that she finds her mother strong despite her anxiety. But for talking him through his third attack now, for being with him, for understanding.  
“And I mean this: Don’t thank me again,” she says. “Not for something like this.”

o

Another year goes by without Jade finding Robbie like that again. They also don’t talk about it again.  
Tori starts her run at Hollywood Arts and Jade suddenly has to hang out with her a lot as her friends also befriend her. And maybe it’s okay to have her around.  
It’s early December. Jade has been more aware of Robbie again in the last few days but Robbie seems to be doing okay this year. Once, Jade saw him more pale than usual, even with a cup of hot cocoa in his hand. Maybe he had a panic attack before but Jade didn’t see him and also wasn’t able to notice him gone or alike. He seems okay.  
They meet up at Tori’s house, the whole group of friends, like they’ve done so often since Tori has become part of their group.  
They’re talking about the reauditions they have to do for Helen the next week. Jade isn’t afraid. She knows she won’t leave Hollywood Arts. She got rightfully in, so why should she be scared? She has talent. As have all her friends, so she also isn’t worried about them. Though she might wonder if Cat will ever decide which talent to show or if it will turn into a big mess with her doing everything at the same time – and therefore her not passing her audition because Helen won’t really get to see her talents.  
Tori’s going on and on about how worried she is meanwhile and Jade decides to use the bathroom and just stay there for a moment, because Tori annoys her way too much.  
She hears the shallow quickened breath as soon as she’s back in the living room. The others are still talking, all over each other. Robbie stands in the kitchen, close to the door to the backyard, staring at Rex, whom he’s holding.  
Jade guesses he must’ve excused himself to the kitchen when he noticed his panic attack starting. Maybe he wanted to leave for the backyard even. But right now, he’s doing everything to hold himself up on his legs at all. He can’t take a step anymore. He’s shaking and maybe, Rex is telling him in his head to breathe evenly, to not let this happen.  
But it’s already happening and Jade isn’t letting him suffer as quietly as he can, so their friends won’t notice. She sure as hell also won’t distract them for him while he has to suffer alone.  
She’s sure he doesn’t want them to know. That’s why he’s probably in the kitchen, got as far away from the group as he still could. But this shouldn’t be an issue. He shouldn’t have to suffer alone, just not to let anyone know about it. They are his friends, hell.  
She walks by the others up to Robbie, who’s turned away from them.  
She gets in front of him and firmly grabs his arm.  
“Look at me, Robbie,” she says, demanding, but also not so loud that she necessarily has to draw the attention of the others to her.  
By the time, she breathes Robbie through his attack and calms him down a bit, their friends long noticed though and came closer, suddenly also worried.  
“Let’s sit down,” Jade tells Robbie as soon as she thinks he will be able to move again, before she’s gone into distracting him.  
He nods, without looking away from her eyes. She also tries to avoid breaking their eye contact as much as she can while she walks Robbie over to the couches and sits him down there.  
The others follow and it’s there that Cat asks, after Jade takes another deep breath and makes sure that Robbie imitates her: “Are you okay?”  
She sits down next to him and holds her hand close to his leg but isn’t touching him, as if she wasn’t sure if she was allowed.  
Jade has let go of Robbie by now and he looks into her eyes for another moment, before he glances to Cat, nodding. “I am. Sorry.”  
“What happened there?” Beck checks, trying to get a good look into Robbie’s face to assure himself that Robbie is his usual self again.  
“I just... I...” Robbie starts.  
Jade draws back further and sits down on the other couch. Robbie searches for her with his eyes and she looks back, openly. She knows that’s all he needs right now. If she had the feeling he would want her to explain or distract their friends or whatever, she would. But he just feels unsure and needed that look.  
He swallows, before he looks around into everyone else’s faces and then down to Rex in his lap. “Uhm... I sometimes have these... sorta anxiety attacks. I used to have them way more often. I’m better.”  
He needs to assure his friends of that.  
“Okay. Good,” Andre says. “Are you getting help?”  
“Mhm,” Robbie makes and Tori agrees with Andre: “Good.”  
And that’s that. Robbie looks to Jade again and she knows that it’s enough for him. He seems somewhat relieved that their friends didn’t back away from him in shock or alike, that they seem understanding, as if they ever would be any different about something like this. But he can’t stand talking more about it and instead this could very well make him go into another panic attack.  
She decides to change the topic before anything else happens: “Anyway, what’s up with the food? Didn’t you say you ordered pizza?”  
She talks to Tori in an accusing enough tone that Tori gets into her defending mode, saying that she of course did and checking on her phone as she ordered online.  
Everyone still looks at Robbie worriedly for a while but they accept this end to it. Robbie also needs about half an hour to look anyone but Jade in the eye again.  
Beck settles next to Jade, putting his arm around her while Tori checks on their order. He’s the one to start the conversation about something else entirely. He acts relaxed but Jade feels how firm Beck holds her and it’s just that way that lets her know how unsure he actually feels about the situation. He uses Jade to anchor him.

The friends don’t talk about it again. Beck does ask Jade about it after he has driven her home, as soon as he parked in her driveway.  
“Did you know?”  
She knows what the question is about though they haven’t talked about it at all while driving home. “I did. I witnessed it before.”  
“That’s how you knew what to do,” Beck notices.  
Well, and that’s not true, not entirely. “You remember what I told you about my little brother’s father?”  
She did tell him about the cheating, about how she had to find him and her mother.  
“I do,” Beck nods.  
And Beck knows everything about her and this is part of her, even if it’s her mother’s thing. So she’s ready to also tell him this. “My mom used to get anxiety attacks over months afterwards.”  
Beck closes his eyes for a moment as if he can’t believe it. He also got angry when he heard about the cheating, about Jade having had to witness. He told her that he can’t stand imagine her at nine years old, having to deal with crap like that.  
He takes her hand in his now and says: “Sometimes I can’t believe through how much you’ve already been.”  
He pulls her into a kiss and she kisses back passionately, before he starts kissing down her neck, moving as far over to her seat as the car allows.  
They always end up making out before he drops her off at home – except if they’re fighting while he does. And sometimes even then.  
She doesn’t say anything about the topic anymore. Though she can’t help but think that she had it easy. Yes, she might’ve been through a lot but she didn’t loose a brother. She won’t say that though. It’s on Robbie to tell that and if he never wants to, it’s fine too.

o

Robbie does feel better and he doesn’t need as much of Rex’ help as he did all those years before. Jade helping him through those panic attacks showed him that... there are more people than Rex who can help him. That he has friends. That he can trust people with this.  
After his brother was dead for a year, the attacks started. He had them all the time at first but learned to control them with help of his therapist and Rex. He was able to pull himself out of spiralling thoughts before he got in too deep. It just isn’t possible around the anniversary of his brother’s death.  
When they come together as a family to mourn his brother once again consciously... it’s so easy for his thoughts, when they spiral because of anything really, to end up with him in the darkness of his room, crying, lost and alone, like it happened after his brother’s death when he was still so young. His thoughts go into that space then, into that room. And he feels so terrible and then also guilty because it wasn’t him who had it the worst after his brother’s death, right? His parents lost their son, damnit. And then there’s his brother himself who lost his life that was supposed to be grand. But he’s the one spiralling back to that lonesome feeling and... he hates himself.  
That’s where he ends up in his panic attacks, when it’s close to the anniversary of his brother’s death.  
But since meeting his friends at Hollywood Arts, since Jade talked him out of his first panic attack there and didn’t make a big deal about it at all, he kind of also got that more under control.  
They are getting less intense and don’t even threaten to come as often anymore when not close to the anniversary of his brother’s death. Rex stays home more and more when Robbie is in school and it isn’t a problem.  
He got through the 30th November this time without anything happening, except the usual mourning.  
But the next day, he gets back a test in school. It’s a C. He tries to take deep breaths. A C isn’t bad. It could be worse. But he was so sure he did good in this test. He’s usually better but these last few weeks he somehow struggled with his grades.  
What if he won’t get better again? What if he won’t manage in college as well? If he will just never be good in anything?  
What will his parents say if he doesn’t even graduate from high school, let alone college? They will be so disappointed and will throw him out. What if they will never talk to him again because he’s such a disappointment? He has already diappointed them so much. His mother already looks at him in that certain way when he talks to Rex. Probably because she likes Rex better than Robbie, because he would be a much better son than he is.  
How much more disappointed will she be when he fails all his classes?  
He will end up alone. Feeling as terrible as he did as a five year old back in that dark room, with that cold grip around his heart.  
He hears everyone leaving. It has been almost the end of class when their teacher handed them back their graded tests. He tries to keep it together, to breathe evenly, to not get lost in that dark room once more, but it’s so close and he barely can catch his breath now. His chest has tightened, his body feels weak.  
Between everyone leaving, he seems to hear Tori’s voice: “Cat, Andre, look. Robbie.”  
They share this class with him and the next moment he feels all of them around him and they start to talk to him.  
“Robbie, please, look at me,” he hears Cat plead with him at some point and he glances to her but he somehow can’t stand her look. They’re all gonna leave him and he will be alone and he can’t and he can’t and he can’t.  
And all that worry in her voice makes it worse, honestly.  
Tori also tries: “Please, breathe, Robbie. Breathe.” But there’s also so much worry, so much fear for him.  
“Calm down, buddy,” Andre says and Robbie hears him and Tori breathe loudly and slowly but he can’t seem to fall into pace with him.  
And then there are more steps. He hears Andre calling out Beck and Jade’s names. They must’ve come in.  
He has been sure that Jade watched him more the last day. Possibly, she now noticed right away that he and the others haven’t come into the main hallway while everyone else in their class did and searched him with Beck, knowing what date it is.  
The others, who have also carefully touched him before, make way for Jade and she promptly walks up to him and grabs him by his arm, so firmly that he definitely feels it and almost gets grounded by it.  
And then there’s Jade’s voice, a clear order: “Robbie, look at me.”  
As if he couldn’t, when she talks to him in that voice. Nobody defies Jade. Honestly, not even his panic attacks dare to defy her.  
His look goes to her eyes and hers are as demanding as her voice and he doesn’t dare to advert his gaze again.  
She orders him to breathe with her and of course he does, slower and slower, until he feels that cold grip around his heart loosen.  
He dares to close his eyes for a moment, to tear his eyes away from Jade’s. He takes another deep breath. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. And he isn’t alone. There are all his friends right by his side, trying everything to be with him, to help him.  
Jade suggests for all of them to get hot cocoa and Robbie can’t imagine anything better than that.  
They all do and then stand together in the corner of a hallway, talking and joking again. Because they all accept that Robbie doesn’t need to talk about all of this, instead is afraid of it. That he needs to handle him like normal instead. Like Jade never treated him like some frail thing. She saw him having a panic attack when they barely knew each other but never treated him any different than everybody else, never acted like he... was weak.  
The rest of his friends also don’t and it feels good. That gives him the safety to now ask: “Do you guys have time today?”  
They all do.  
“Can we spend the day together?”  
Them not treating him any differently makes him feel safe enough to ask for what he needs, weirdly.  
And his friends agree without hesitation.  
Maybe, he’ll tell them later this day about his big brother. His big brother who meant everything to him and whom they would’ve all loved.  
But maybe, he also won’t feel ready for it after all, even after all those years, even after having talked to his therapist about him and his death so much and also with his family.  
Looking into Jade’s eyes again, he knows it’ll be fine either way. Looking into Jade’s eyes again, he feels weirdly grounded and safe.


End file.
